


Do These Tacos Taste Funny to You?

by paintedbluerose



Series: Whumptober [22]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Firelord Zuko (Avatar), Food Poisoning, Gen, Hurt Zuko (Avatar), Poison, Poisoning, Protective Katara (Avatar), Protective Toph Beifong, Toph Beifong and Zuko are Siblings, Whump, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020, Zuko (Avatar) whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:35:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27154607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintedbluerose/pseuds/paintedbluerose
Summary: Zuko is poisoned during breakfast.Day 22 of Whumptober theme: Do these tacos taste funny to you?Prompts: poisoned, drugged, withdrawal
Relationships: Aang & Toph Beifong & Katara & Sokka & Suki & Zuko, Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong & Zuko
Series: Whumptober [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950010
Comments: 5
Kudos: 138





	Do These Tacos Taste Funny to You?

**Author's Note:**

> It’s not my best but it sort of works. I spent too much time researching poisons. Which may not be a good thing... 😂

Zuko was excited. His friends were all visiting him after being away for months. Sure, Toph still lived with him at the Palace and Aang came often enough. But not all were there at the same time. Not since Ba Sing Se. So he planned a big meal. Several meals to be exact. (He knew how hungry Sokka got.)

It started with breakfast. Fruits and meats and tarts anyone could wish for. Sure, it seemed like his had an extra topping and sure, it didn’t taste normal, but he felt fine. He wasn’t sick.

He had a council meeting right after, which was normal. He, at least, was able to put off the rest of the meetings until later that week. The meeting ran later than normal and he missed lunch. No big deal. It happens.

Except, he started to feel nauseous towards the end of the meeting. And it wasn’t just because of what they were talking about or who was talking. As soon as the meeting ended, he raced to his room where he proceeded to vomit.

He tried to drink water to hydrate himself but he could swallow it. It just wouldn’t go down.

He’d been poisoned.

“Get Katara and my Uncle!” He yelled at the guard by his door. “Hurry!”

He didn’t wait for the response as he was sick again. He wasn’t sure what the poison was. He just hoped between Katara and Uncle, they could figure it out.

~~~~

Katara was enjoying tea with Uncle and her friends. Except Zuko. He was still in a meeting and missed lunch. He promised it was the only meeting he had for a while so she was okay if it went over a little.

It was a relaxing afternoon until a guard came running in. “Master Katara, General Iroh, the Firelord requests your presence immediately!”

The sound of porcelain shattering filled the room. “Something’s wrong!” Iroh jumped from his seat.

He ran out the door with more energy than Katara thought possible. Then again, if he was injured, Uncle would want to go to Zuko as soon as possible.

Katara was just a few steps behind Uncle and if she looked behind her, she would have seen the rest of the group following close behind. She didn’t need to. She heard movement and knew they would follow. Zuko was their friend as well.

When they arrived to Zuko’s room, he was lying on the ground, moaning in pain. Iroh and Sokka quickly helped Zuko to his bed and Katara did a quick scan to find what was wrong.

“His organs are failing. How are they failing?”

“Can you heal him?”

“I’m not sure. I can try. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“Poison.” Zuko muttered.

“What kind though? I need-“

“Katara, you said his organs are failing. Can you try to repair those? Maybe the poison is still in there you can remove?” Iroh asked.

She nodded. Was she entirely positive she could heal him? Not exactly. But this was Zuko. She had to try.

Iroh tried to get him to drink anything but Zuko couldn’t swallow any liquid. He was in and out of consciousness as Katara worked on him. She was able to find some poison in his system and expelled what she could of it. Over and over she checked him and repaired what she could. It was late by the time she was done and felt confident she did all she could.

Zuko was still asleep. No one wanted to leave his room as they waited for him to wake. Uncle asked for dinner to be brought to the room to eat as they waited for a response. (Which Sokka was very happy about. He cared about his friend but he was hungry!)

Finally, finally, in the moments before sunrise, Zuko woke up. After a quick checkup from Katara, he was deemed healthy and safe.

As soon as she walked away, Toph latched onto Zuko. “Don’t ever do that again Sparky. You can’t leave me.”

“I won’t leave you Toph.” He smiled. “I still owe you a field trip”

“And for burning my feet.” She punched him.

“And for the feet.” He nodded.

Katara rolled her eyes but let the two of them be. Toph had had several field trips. But Toph needed her brother. Katara could understand that.

**Author's Note:**

> The poison I used was ricin which can show symptoms from six hours to days after depending on route of exposure and dose. It can be ingested, inhaled, or injected. It starts to shut down the organs and leads to death. 
> 
> I don’t know how much it would cause all of it (my research was like who knows!) so I kind of guessed a lot. And made medical inaccuracies. So sorry about that.


End file.
